formed, form, and will form the immense majority of the world's
inhabitants. Astronomers and meteorologists would soon have dropped
the subject altogether had not, on the night of the 26th and 27th,
the observatory of Kautokeino at Finmark, in Norway, and during the
night of the 28th and 29th that of Isfjord at Spitzbergen--Norwegian
one and Swedish the other--found themselves agreed in recording that
in the center of an aurora borealis there had appeared a sort of huge
bird, an aerial monster, whose structure they were unable to
determine, but who, there was no doubt, was showering off from his
body certain corpuscles which exploded like bombs.

In Europe not a doubt was thrown on this observation of the stations
in Finmark and Spitzbergen. But what appeared the most phenomenal
about it was that the Swedes and Norwegians could find themselves in
agreement on any subject whatever.

There was a laugh at the asserted discovery in all the observatories
of South America, in Brazil, Peru, and La Plata, and in those of
Australia at Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne; and Australian laughter
is very catching.

To sum up, only one chief of a meteorological station ventured on a
decided answer to this question, notwithstanding the sarcasms that
his solution provoked. This was a Chinaman, the director of the
observatory at Zi-Ka-Wey which rises in the center of a vast plateau
less than thirty miles from the sea, having an immense horizon and
wonderfully pure atmosphere. "It is possible," said he, "that the
object was an aviform apparatus--a flying machine!"

What nonsense!